Those of you that follow me on Twitter know that a few weeks ago someone sent me the link to the coolest thing I’d seen in just about forever: the Bento USB drive. Luckily, I was able to buy two before the drool shorted out my keyboard. They took a while to get here, but when they did I practically screamed like a little girl.
They’re only 2 gigs so they aren’t good for holding your collection of bento images for long, but really, WHO CARES?!! It’s a freaking USB drive with a tiny bento on it!! I don’t think I’ll even use mine, I just want to look at it and grin ear to ear.
Like I said, I bought two. One for me and one for one of you. To enter, simply comment on this blog post and tell me what bento tool you feel you can’t live without and why. Is it a nori punch? An onigiri mold? A simple toothpick? Scissors? Tell me all about it! I’ll accept entries until September 18th then pick a random winner from the bunch. The contest is open worldwide and I’m limiting it to one entry per person.
I should also mention that today is the official day that Kawaii Bento Boxes: Cute and Convenient Japanese Meals on the Go
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for me, it’s the box itself. if I don’t have super cute matching pink boxes, it’s not nearly as fun! :)
Boring answer, but I have to go with what some others have said… a really SHARP paring knife. Also, my little sauce bottles with snap-close tops because they stay tight closed without leaking.
chopsticks. they’re so much easier to maneuver than a fork for delicately placing/rotating items in a bento bento box. western utensils can be so clumsy!
I don’t have much, so my must-have would be the bento dividers, to prevent all my flavors from mixing!
Cookie cutters! They are an easy way to add “cute” to my lunch. :)
Onigiri mold! That makes bento making easy even if all you have is just rice and furikake.
I’ve just started making these. I love my egg molds and am just trying to build up a collection. I found some pre-punched nori (pokemon shaped) at the Asian grocery store. I can’t wait to see the look on my kids faces!
I know this sounds boring, but the most important tool for making a bento for me is a good paring knife. With a good knife you can pretty much pull off everything: trim things down to fit, cut food into nice shapes, peel veggies…you name it.
The many wonderful websites, like yours, that provide such terrific ideas!
It is boring – but my Lock & Lock boxes. I use these 90% of the time so I can throw lunch in my backpack and not worry about leaking. I love my cute traditional bento boxes, but they rarely get used anymore!
I love my multi-layered bento boxes.
My most important tool is my egg mold! Well, actually, its not that important. I just like hello kitty lol
I really like using tiny jars for sauces… When I was youngers I never had dressing with my salads but now I like to include just a little bit in my lunch box…
thanks for the contest, it’s been fun reading all of the comments :)
Food picks! Especially the ones that look like bones for the meat balls.
The paper cutter to cut cute shapes from seaweed paper.
My husband to watch the kids so I have time to pack all of our lunches for the next day!
I taught in Japan more than ten years ago, and bought a gingko at the Aritsugu knife store in Kyoto. Not a gourd or a maple leaf, but a gingko. It took about a year of visiting to make sure I was picking the right one, and a couple more months before I finally gave in and bought the thing. And now I take such pleasure in it, every day, for years!
My favorite bento tool is simple. Patty pans, or a normal people call them, paper muffin cases. They transform a neat bento box into a colorful eyefeast. (Incidently, that should be a word. Doesn’t it sound delicious?)
I buy beautifully colored, striped or spotted patty pans, fill them up with my little clumps of which ever food I am cooking.
Incidentally, I have seen a similar USB drive. (Well, not similar at all but…) this one connects to a little pot so that you can…*drumroll*…warm up your lunch via your computer.
http://www.thanko.jp/hot_launchbag/
Rendered useless by a microwave but, c’mon, it connects to your computer via USB. Who wouldn’t buy it?
xox
I can’t live my chopsticks!
My boxes, of course! :) More than that? My little set of carving tools!
I am sort of a begginer, so I don’t have that many bento items. So, I have to be creative. I really love dollar store cookie cutters. I got Halloween shaps last week.
That usb is adorable!
Thank you for posting.
I love that bento USB stick! If it had bigger memory, I would buy whether I won or not.
So, here’s my entry…
The bento item I CANNOT live without is my nori-punch collection. Most of the time I don’t have time to construct elaborate bentos, and a nori-punched expression really brightens up a lunch item. Also, I quite often use them to express my mood on that day, or cheer me up. Who wouldn’t be cheered up by a smiling onigiri when they’re down?
awesome bento usb drive XD
my bento tool is aluminum foil to keep the juices from mixing >.>
I’m fairly new to bento, so I haven’t had a chance to test out a lot of tools, but the simple onigiri molds have probably been the best thing I came across. I tried making a standard oval onigiri without a mold – an effort which consisted of me jumping around as I burned my hands, running to the sink to wash off all the rice that stuck to me – then saying a few unladylike things when the rice wouldn’t stick to itself, and . . . you get the idea. I did finally make a passable froggie onigiri, but YAY onigiri molds!
My favorite tool is teh interwebs…as it were. Sometimes I come up a little shallow in the creativity department, (which is weird for an art major) and I need some creative input. Some of the stuff you guys come up with though is so damn cute and creative I just have to kick myself and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?!”
OMG! That USB is just too cool!
Hmmm, what tool do I really need…
I’d have to say my potato knife (actually I have about 6 of these, for when 5 end up in the dishwasher at the same time). I make practical rather than pretty bentos, so getting my food to fit in my box is a big requirement. I do tend to try and cut decoratively, bit sometimes I just can’t bothered and plunk everything in…
I love this little USB card with the bento on it! I saw it somewhere else, too, and thought it was too cute. Now I have a chance to WIN one… yipee!
The tool I can’t do without right now is my little star-shaped veggie cutter. A carrot star here or there really spruces up a boring bento… lol.
i second Bhevarri’s thought on the silicone molds, but i really get a lot of use out of the egg molds and 5-compartment sushi molds. i love how the sushi molds don’t crush the rice or smush the grains together.
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